Hard-starting soft nibs yet no BB

[TheDutchGuy]

Some of my pens with soft nibs hard-start or skip on downstrokes, especially when starting a new word and especially when writing fast. A telltale sign of BB, yet these nibs didn’t have BB. Examples are an early and somewhat soft Leonardo Furore, a particularly soft vintage MB 342, a particularly soft Pilot Falcon SEF and to some tiny extent even a MB 146C.

 

To put it differently: my pens with soft nibs hard-start much more frequently than my pens with rigid nibs. Yet there is no BB.

 

I’ve done some writing under a stereo microscope and the cause is that when the nib moves away from the feed at the start of a word, the gap is not filled with ink. I sanity-checked it against some pens with soft nibs that don’t hard-start and sure enough on those pens the gap is filled with ink.

 

So basically it’s a starvation issue and the faster I write, the more it becomes a nuisance. If there’s a solution for it, then I’d be much appreciated.

 

[mhguda]

I have no experience with the pens you name whatsoever, but from your description, I'd be inclined to try heat-setting the nib against the feed, to see if you could get a better fit against the feed for the length of the nib.

[arcfide]

I assume that you are intentionally applying pressure to the nib to create a shaded first stroke? Other than not pressing down so hard on the nib, maybe heat setting the nib, or using a different ink, I'm not sure how much you can do if the nib is fitted to the nib properly and at the right feed/nib orientation. You must be pressing down *very* hard and really flexing the nib to exceed the typical ink capabilities on the first stroke, since there ought to be enough ink in the slit and on the underside of the nib to write a typical downstroke. 

 

I assume that you're sure what you're seeing isn't railroading? It's actual skipping and hard starting? 

[dipper]

1 ) Heat setting the feed - if ebonite, not plastic. I agree with that suggestion.

 

Some instructions that I have seen on heat setting seem inadequate - especially if a soft nib is involved.

Simply squeezing the nib and feed together is possibly going to flex the nib more than the feed. Then when finger-squeeze pressure is released the nib will simply spring back up to its normal position.

What I find works is to dip feed and nib into near boiling water (as general instruction videos), squeeze nib and feed together (as general instruction videos), and then gently push sideways to bend the feed and nib together in the direction of the nib.

Also I set a cold tap to a slow dribble before lifting the pen feed and nib out of the hot water. Then when I think I have got the right amount of force applied, and my finger and thumb are getting uncomfortably hot, I move the pen and my fingers to be under the cold water dribble. Hold there for about a minute, then relax.

 

Other solutions....

 

2 ) Write with a lighter pressure onto the paper, so that the tines do not open when first contacting the paper.

 

3 ) Add a speck of surfactant to the ink.

When experimenting with that method of adjusting ink I use dishwasher rinse-aid = an anionic surfactant.

I don't risk messing with the ink bottle though - if too much surfactant added the ink will bleed badly on almost every paper and so a whole bottle could be ruined.

If cartridge / converter, pull the cart/converter and add a speck of rinse aid with a needle through the mouth of the cart/converter. If eyedropper, unscrew and add a speck into body of pen. If piston filler or sac filler - umm.. I don't have a method. Perhaps dump pen ink into a clean thimble, add a speck of rinse aid, then suck up into pen again?

[TheDutchGuy]

On 2/27/2023 at 1:43 AM, arcfide said:

I assume that you are intentionally applying pressure to the nib to create a shaded first stroke? ... You must be pressing down *very* hard and really flexing the nib to exceed the typical ink capabilities on the first stroke, since there ought to be enough ink in the slit and on the underside of the nib to write a typical downstroke ...  I assume that you're sure what you're seeing isn't railroading? It's actual skipping and hard starting? 

 

Thanks for the responses!

 

I write with a very light touch. It's actual hard starting. My downstrokes are quite fast but light. The tines aren't spreading apart, they're moving away from the feed. These nibs are very soft, not much pressure is needed to get that cushiony feeling when writing. Heat-setting a soft nib might defeat its purpose.

 

[arcfide]

5 hours ago, TheDutchGuy said:

I write with a very light touch. It's actual hard starting. My downstrokes are quite fast but light. The tines aren't spreading apart, they're moving away from the feed. These nibs are very soft, not much pressure is needed to get that cushiony feeling when writing. Heat-setting a soft nib might defeat its purpose.

 

If you're writing with a light touch, there should be no separation of the feed and the nib at all. Indeed, there should be no real movement of the nib from its stock orientation at all. I have a Spencerian modified Falcon pen and the 149 Calligraphy and under light pressure, there is no movement of the nib at all. Something seems wrong if the nibs are moving away from the feed with less pressure than the weight of the pen on the nib. Are you able to determine whether the pens write a consistent line under their own weight without nib movement as you hold the pen at the end of the body and let the pen flow over the page without any input? Doing that, if you don't get the pen to flow, does a rotation of the nib change things? I have found that with some pens, it's very easy for the tines to come slightly out of alignment if they are soft, and that will create hard starts if the writer doesn't ensure that the end of every stroke leaves the pen completely aligned. 

 

However, the feeds separating from the body is worrisome to me, because that should only ever happen under pressure for shaded strokes. With a very light touch, I have found some pens are much more sensitive to rotation than others. 

[TheDutchGuy]

Thanks for your response, Arcfide! Are you sure that soft nibs don’t cushion when writing normally with a light touch, i.e. not just the pen’s weight but not flexing either? If you can feel it, then it moves.

 

Rotation is a different matter. Sometimes I do that without noticing it. 

[arcfide]

4 hours ago, TheDutchGuy said:

Are you sure that soft nibs don’t cushion when writing normally with a light touch, i.e. not just the pen’s weight but not flexing either? If you can feel it, then it moves.

 

I'd say that cushioning can be felt even when there isn't any observable movement of the nib from the feed. The slight vibrations made by the pen sliding over the paper makes it possible to feel a distinct difference between a soft and hard nib. Additionally, when you exceed light pressure occasionally throughout the stroke, that will reveal the softness or hardness as well. 

 

Any time that the nib lifts off of the feed, I would consider that flexing. You can find many people who always write with a small downward pressure on the pen which results in a little flexing throughout their whole writing experience. Indeed, I think this is perhaps even the majority of people. I believe Nakaya gave a grams of pressure measurement for what they would consider "light pressure" on their page which was, IMO, very generous, meaning that they included much heavier pressure than I would have under the category of "light pressure". However, the Platinum nibs that they use a much more resilient to such pressure than many other nibs. On the other hand, at the high end of their "light pressure" scale, you would easily be pretty well flexing out your typical flex dip pen nib such as a Zebra G. Given that my experience primarily stems from working with those steel dip flex nibs, I reserve the term light pressure for anything that won't move the nibs of those steel nibs. 

 

 

[arcfide]

If you have some pictures of the feeds and their ink starvation and flexing, that might also help to look into things. Many pens, including my 149 Calligraphy, are meant to write even without the ink filling the gap between feed and nib when flexed. The thing that matters if the feed is unable to supply ink to the ink channel of the nib and if the ink channel of the nib is unable to supply ink to the tipping that is in contact with the paper. 

[A Smug Dill]

On 2/26/2023 at 8:18 PM, TheDutchGuy said:

Some of my pens with soft nibs hard-start or skip on downstrokes, especially when starting a new word and especially when writing fast. …‹snip›… a particularly soft Pilot Falcon SEF and to some tiny extent even a MB 146C. …‹snip›… I’ve done some writing under a stereo microscope and the cause is that when the nib moves away from the feed at the start of a word, the gap is not filled with ink.

 

I'll take “when starting a new word” as meaning upon reestablishing physical contact between the pen and page after a pen lift (when the nib's tip breaks contact briefly with the paper surface).

 

In the moment immediately preceding a pen lift, the nib would be depositing some volume of ink from the tine gap onto the paper surface. Unless the pen — as a complete writing instrument and system — is so ‘wet’ that there is effectively straight-through flow (at the exact same rate) of ink from the pen's reservoir, with virtually nil delay, at whatever variable, or maximum, rate ink is being deposited (or ‘dumped’) onto the page, upon breaking contact, the tine gap would not be filled with ink to (the virtual container's) capacity.

 

The logic of the physical system is therefore that, during the pen lift, the tine gap would be replenished, all ingress and no egress (except perhaps for negligible evaporation, to be pedantic), by way of capillary action with ink from the feed. When starting a new word, the ink that gets deposited on the first stroke to appear on the page is what was already held between the tine gap. Even if the nib is lifted from the feed within a split-second of reestablishing contact between pen and page (which is the only way the metal can be elastically deformed — with or without lateral splaying of the tines — by the force of the reaction to the downward pressure from the weight of the pen and hand of the user), it would not be the determinant in whether there is hard-starting to be observed. The ink would already have started to flow onto the paper surface, and it is unlikely that breaking contact with the feed would cause the fluid held in the tine gap to flow out in reverse.

 

On 2/26/2023 at 8:18 PM, TheDutchGuy said:

So basically it’s a starvation issue and the faster I write, the more it becomes a nuisance.

 

Yes, but not for the reason you described, I'd imagine. If you're seeing hard-starts, then it make more sense to attribute it to a failure to replenish the tine gap with ink (quickly enough) during the pen lift; and such a failure could be the result of the nib's underside not touching the top of the feed for some part of the duration of the pen lift. It makes more sense to attribute or suspect the cause of that to be due to ‘poor’ or slow ‘snap-back’ of the physically elastic (in whichever direction of movement, and whether that means ‘soft’ or ‘flexible’) tines after the nib was pressed hard at the end of the previous word immediately before a pen lift. The faster you write, the shorter the duration of the pen lifts, and consequently the larger proportion of time of no capillary action happening during a pen lift and the less time for replenishing the tine gap with ink. The ‘softer’ the nib, i.e. the less it fights the user tooth-and-nail to return to its shape at rest within microseconds of the user relieving the downward pressure (including in the middle of a word, or even a stem or bowl that forms a minuscule in a given script), the more likely it will be a problem.

 

On 2/26/2023 at 8:18 PM, TheDutchGuy said:

If there’s a solution for it, then I’d be much appreciated.

 

If my conjecture above is largely correct or relevant to the articulation of the problem, then the ‘solutions’, or levers by which one can alleviate the symptoms, are:

1. slow down, to more time for the tine gap to be replenished with ink, especially if you are not going to change the ink flow characteristics of the system's components (where they are relevant for when the tines are in contact with the feed);
2. avoid draining the tine gap on the pen stroke immediately preceding a pen lift, so that it takes less ink (and therefore less time, given a particular rate) to fully replenish the tine gap;
3. avoid doing what increases the duration of non-contact between the tines and the feed during the pen lift; and
4. increase the ‘wetness’ of the feed, or ink flow rate from the feed into the tine gap, such that even when handicapped by slow ‘snap-back’ of the nib/tines and pushed by an uncooperative user, there is still a better chance for replenishing the tine gap with ink sufficiently for the next pen stroke.

Of the above, point 1 is the easiest and least costly to the user, who simply has to reconcile with the limitations of the system, and consciously capitulate to them and compromise on his/her preferences or habits in writing.

 

A tactic of mindfully finishing off exit strokes — especially at the end of a word when writing cursively, immediately before a pen lift — light-handedly, such that the tines are not ‘flexed’ (and hence the tines are not far removed from the feed, and do not require much physical movement or travel to get back into contact) would address both points 2 and 3.

 

Using a nib with better, more rapid ‘snap-back’ — which usually means one that offers more pushback against the hand that tries to push or ‘flex’ it for expressiveness — or, alternatively, a more rigid nib on which the tines would not yield elastically in the first place, would address point 3.

 

Addressing point 4 by using a replacement feed, or widening the ink channel on the existing one, or even using a wetter-flowing ink, would logically be less effective than any of the above.

[TheDutchGuy]

Thanks for your contribution, Dill. Thorough as always! I’ve given it some more thought and did some more checking. It’s worth noticing that I only have this issue with soft-nibbed pens. The quality and variety of these soft-nibbed pens is such that the chances of a common quality issue with nib or feed are negligible. So it’s probably the way I write. As mentioned, I don’t exert much pressure beyond experiencing a light cushioning. But my downstrokes are like lightning. And it only happens on downstrokes, especially when printing (no loops, no connected letters). When I write cursive, it doesn’t occur. When I slow down, it doesn’t occur. A minute, barely perceptible touch of the nib to paper before I start the downward movement solves it. So that’s the way to go.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Are the pens nib and feed properly aligned?...tiny bits matter...

I can imagine if the nib is set a bit long, it could be riding a bit high on the feed.....WOG.

In i don't seem to have that problem....or often enough that it worries me.

[WestLothian]

18 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Are the pens nib and feed properly aligned?...tiny bits matter...

I can imagine if the nib is set a bit long, it could be riding a bit high on the feed.....WOG.

In i don't seem to have that problem....or often enough that it worries me.

I agree "tiny bits matter". Before writing one should be able to observe that there is already ink drawn to the writing point, and it ought to be sitting in the slit between the two tines. This should be able to flow immediately onto the paper in an upstroke with no pressure only physical contact. If you require downstroke pressures and nib elastic deformation of any kind to encourage ink onto paper then the nib and feed require maintenance. If there is no ink at the slit then there could be a oil/grease type contamination, there could be poor contact with the nib and the feed ink channels. A careful visual inspection with x10 magnification should reveal most causes of poor ink supply to the point of contact. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

I had a pen that sat before my nose for months...in I wasn't sure how hot the water needed to be in the shot glass or for how long I was to 'soak' the nib and feed...and too dammed lazy to look it up..

 

 """If Ebonite, you can dip the assembled nib in close-to-boiling water for 30 seconds, then push up on the feed and hold in place until it cools in the position you desire for optimal ink-conduction."""

Press the top of the nib, and the bottom of the feed together hard with a thumb and forefinger until after the nib has cooled.

 

When a replacement Degussa Easy Full Flex nibbed pen**, joined the other pen; so I finally got  to looking.

Both pens work now, buy holding the nib and section in the very hot water and pressing the nib tightly to the feed inside a paper towel, because of the heat.

 

** It has been a while since I used a superflex nib, and it makes my script look like I know what I'm doing; when all I'm doing is scribbling normal. The line variation is so much more than semi-flex.